


Elementary 15: The Second Hiatus (1891-1894)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary: The Complete Cases of Castiel Novak (and Dean Winchester) [15]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hiatus, London, M/M, Pining Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:26:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4844042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Known (all too accurately) to my loyal readers as 'The Hellatus'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elementary 15: The Second Hiatus (1891-1894)

1891

It was one of the many bitter ironies of life, but I was man enough to admit that I would not have got myself through the next three Cas-less years without the help and assistance of Mr. Lucifer Novak whom, I suspected, felt the loss of the great man almost as much as I myself did. Some six years older than Cas, I had met him on but a handful of occasions, and it had always struck me that he was far more the typical government agent than either of his younger siblings. It also struck me that whilst he was pretty much estranged from the rest of his family, he was prepared to work with Balthazar and Gabriel for the sake of their younger brother. 

I said goodbye to Mrs. Moseley, who wished me well for the future, and Lucifer Novak took me back to Kansas City – I was heartily glad to be away from Lawrence – and onto St. Louis the next day, where we paused for a few days whilst I tried to pull myself together. Across the vastness of the still-growing United States, it took some days to make the journey back to New York, from whence we took the Teutonic back to Liverpool. We hardly spoke for the whole of the crossing, and upon arriving spent a night at a hotel in the port city.

I expected us to start for London the following day, but instead we boarded a Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway train for York, a small local train that seemed in no particular hurry to cross the Pennines. I voiced no objection; I did not really care as to where we went, now that I no longer had Cas. On reaching Leeds, Lucifer Novak led me out onto the station forecourt, and I stared at him in puzzlement. He seemed to be waiting for someone....

“Hullo, Dean.”

I turned in shock, and there behind me was the unmistakable overly-tall figure of my brother Sammy. I stared at him for far too long before all but falling into his arms, weeping like a love-struck omega. I did not notice Lucifer hand him a sheet of papers before slipping away, and my brother led me quietly to a platform where a special with a first-class carriage awaited me. I knew this must be Lucifer's doing; there was no way Sammy could afford something like that.

+~+~+

We had been underway for some little time before I pulled myself together enough to speak.

“Thank you”, I muttered.

He smiled at me. 

“Your friend has arranged four weeks off work for me, plus childcare for Jess and the kids”, he said gently. “If you want to return to Baker Street, Sir Charles will continue to pay Castiel's share of the rent for as long as you wish to stay there.”

I felt awkward about that. Whilst I did not like the idea of my being beholden to anyone, I knew there was no way I could afford to keep those rooms for myself alone, and the idea of allowing anyone else in to share with me.... never! Unhealthy though it almost certainly was, I wanted to keep what little I could of my lost friend. Besides, I had stayed there last time, and he had come back then.....

Sammy reached over and took my hand in his, and I teared up again. I was all over the place, but I owed it to Cas to try to carry on. And to share our remaining and so far unpublished adventures with a general populace who could only slowly come to know the terrible truth of how one of the greatest and most wonderful human beings ever to grace this earth was now lost to them. 

+~+~+

My four weeks with Sammy and Jess passed all too quickly, and I declined his offer of accompanying me back to London. I had to face the horrors of our rooms without Cas, and I was determined to do it alone. The journey seemed to take forever, and when the cab drew up outside 221B, I was painfully aware that I was returning to an empty house.

I had been dreading having to tell Mrs. Harvelle and her daughter about what had happened, but apparently they already knew (Lucifer Novak, presumably). I walked slowly upstairs to our rooms – my rooms now, I supposed – and unlocked the door. Walking in, I dropped my bag carelessly on the floor and went to hang up my coat. 

Cas' ridiculous lumberjack hat was still on the coat-stand.

That was when I broke, falling to the floor and sobbing uncontrollably. I had lost him.

+~+~+

Fortunately, my small circle of friends all knew me well enough to realize that anyone who uttered the old canard about 'life goes on' would receive short shrift. Of course it did, if what I had left could be called life. I took on more patients, but was surprised to find that my muse, which I had been sure would abandon me, still worked. Shortly before the dramatic events that took me – and Cas – across the ocean, I had furnished the Strand magazine with the finished tale of 'It's A Terrible Life' and counting up, I realized that I had ten more stories that were printable (or at least which Cas had said could be published) before having to recount the recent traumatic events. My erstwhile publishers were also pressing me for a further book. In the end I agreed to publish the cases up to Cas' death in two books of five stories each, provided as usual that the magazine got to serialize them all first. 

One of the most painful parts of continuing on at Baker Street was having to deal with the daily flood of mail which arrived, mostly for people requesting Cas to help them with their cases. I do not know why, but the trifling sort of things which he would have sometimes found challenging only served to vex me when I read them, and I quickly drew up a standard letter of reply, stating that Cas would be unavailable to tackle new cases 'until further notice'. Lucifer Novak helped me in this by taking out advertisements in the major London newspapers which re-iterated the message, and over time the flow of requests dried up.

One incident that year which demonstrated all too well my own abysmal lack of detective abilities should, in all fairness, be recorded. I was looking for something in the back of one of the cupboards when I came across an old blanket of mine, which I remembered Cas had borrowed some time back. Quite what it was doing at the back of a cupboard containing mostly papers was odd, and as I smelled it, memories of him came flooding back. I supposed that his scent must have lingered on it somehow, and if I chose to stay home that day with said blanket wrapped tightly around me, I was not being the least bit pathetic.

Not much, anyway.

Oh, who was I kidding?

The last adventure in the first of my two new books, 'Mummy Dearest', was sent in to be edited in October, though with the magazine serializing part of each story each week, it would be early the following year before it could go on sale. Sammy had invited me to travel north and spend the festive season with him, but I did not want to spread my poor cheer any further than was necessary, and declined. Again, it was probably unhealthy not wanting to be away from Cas' belongings for any period of time, but I was past caring about such things. The season did bring some good news however; one of the late and un-lamented Doctor Kurt Metatron's relatives whom Lucifer had been concerned over came out second in a duel in his native Italy. It was the closest thing I had to a real present.

1892

Eighteen hundred and ninety-two started with the death of the queen's eldest grandson, the Prince of Wales' son Albert Duke of Clarence, a man later falsely and vilely maligned as a suspect in the Ripper killings. It seemed to cast a shadow over the whole year, and I began to think that this would be the theme for what remained of my life. I had turned forty the same month that the prince passed on, and throughout that year I increasingly felt just plain old. What I had left without Cas was not life, just existence. I threw myself into completing the second of the two books, and by July it was done and dispatched to the publishers for editing, just as the last story in it, 'Red Sky At Morning', began to be published in the Strand. I got quite annoyed with the publishers over their request to publish the book sooner; they knew full well that the Strand got the stories first and uniquely for a time because they had been first to publish my poor efforts.

It was, oddly enough, the day after what would have been Cas' thirty-eighth birthday when I arrived back at Baker Street to find the main room submerged under a pile of what looked like letters. I was confused, until I remembered that I having finally bit the bullet, the first installment of 'Reichenbach' had been published in the Strand the day before, with a warning as to what was to come. Apparently the public was shocked to read that their favourite character was going to die, and I was bombarded with questions, commiserations, condolences, and more than a few demands for me to change the ending.

God, I so wished that I could!

Having tidied away most of the letters, it suddenly struck me that whilst I had kept the main room tidy since my return many months ago, I had not actually ventured into Cas' bedroom. Indeed, I had simply turned the key soon after my return and not given it a thought since, because it was just too painful. Now I unlocked the door and peeped inside. It was a mess, and very Cas. It looked like a room of someone who had died, and for some reason, I felt bitterly ashamed. I backed out of the room, went and sat down in the fireside chair opposite Cas' (I hardly ever sat there) and thought.

Half an hour later, the surgery had been informed that I would not be in that week, and I was covered in dust as I sorted determinedly through the mess. It struck me as I placed papers into various piles that what I was doing was verging on the morbid, but I pushed the thought down, and finished tidying his papers. I could not clean the room to the standard of Mrs. Harvelle's maids, but I made it presentable, and I dug out fresh sheets for the bed. When I had finished, the room once more looked as if someone actually lived there.

I was being so stupid!

I had an unexpected visitor just over one week later. Mrs. Phyllis Metatron, wife of the late and un-lamented Doctor Kurt, called on me. She was a small, timid woman, who seemed almost embarrassed at having to ask if what I had written about her husband was true. I told her as much as I could, though it cost me on an emotional level. She thanked me and left, and I heard soon after through Lucifer Novak that she had taken her children to start a new life in New South Wales, about as far as she could get from the Metatron family. I believe that she also changed her name once she was Down Under, and I cannot say that I blamed her.

Almost without realizing it, I fell into the habit of tidying Cas' room and remaking the bed on the first Thursday of each month, Mrs. Harvelle providing me with sheets and cleaning equipment without comment, bless the woman. I also made sure that Cas' area in the main room was kept clean, possibly even tidier than my own bedroom. I had received requests from both the Strand and my publishers (now renamed after a recent merger to become Brett, Burke and Hardwicke) for more stories, but I flatly refused. The postman refused to lift two sackfuls of mail up the stairs the following day, and I spent the following weekend sorting through them and answering some of the questions for a last article in the magazine.

October of that year brought a double bonus when two of the late Doctor Metatron's relatives were drowned in a fishing accident. I was beginning to entertain suspicions at this point that Lucifer Holmes or one of his brothers was behind that family's sudden run of bad luck, but after what one of them had done to my beloved Cas, I could only hope that it continued. They deserved everything they got! I was also gladdened when I received a telegram from Sammy saying that Jessica was pregnant, and I was to be an uncle for a second time.

1893

This year was marked by just three major events, the first of which happened in February when another of Doctor Metatron's relatives was shot in France whilst walking too near a shooting range. For some reason that made me bitter; why could that sort of thing not had happened to the evil doctor, and spared me my friend? Lucifer Novak visited me soon afterwards, and reminded me that only two close family remained now; the younger brother Adolphus and father Louis. I was still at potential risk – I knew from bitter experience how news always seemed to reach the ears of people whom one did not wish to hear of it – but at least the risk was lower now.

The second event gave me a rare lift, when that March my sister-in-law gave birth to a son, whom they called Henry Jonathan Winchester. It was a very difficult birth, two weeks overdue, and her doctor advised her that having any more children would be highly inadvisable. I knew that probably upset Sammy a little, as he had hoped for four or five children, but he loved his wife too much to risk her health.

The third and final incident happened in June, at the unveiling of the fountain and a golden statue in Piccadilly Circus, and was rather odd. I remember thinking how most newspapers had wrongly described the statue as being of Eros whereas it was his brother Anteros; the god of love returned, not love given. My love had been given long ago, and would now never be returned. 

I had been attending the unveiling with Lucifer Novak, and turned away lest my thoughts be too clear in my face. Looking across the circus, I spied a man wearing a leather jacket, whose blond hair had been blown by the summer winds into a mess reminiscent of my late friend's. He had on a pair of small round spectacles, and was looking vaguely in my direction before shuffling off. I was distracted by Lucifer speaking to me, and when I looked back, the man had gone. I sighed unhappily.

If only wishing did indeed make it so!

Cas' birthday – it would have been his thirty-ninth – passed uneventfully that year, and it was perhaps fortunate that I spent the days either side of it attending on one of my clients, Mrs. Bulstrode, whose first-born son seemed determined to delay his entry into the world for as long as possible. Fortunately he was healthy enough when finally out on the last day of the month, and I supposed that I owed him a debt of gratitude for distracting me at such a difficult time.

Even though I was alone for Christmas, I still decorated our rooms as much as usual. There was the usual smattering of cards and gifts, and someone anonymously sent me the weirdest thing, an angel dressed in a long-coat just like Cas', presumably to go on top of the tree. It made me smile every time I returned to the place.

1894

The month of January in 'Ninety-Four was a bitter one across Great Britain and the near Continent, so I was not totally surprised when Balthazar Novak informed me that it had claimed the life of the late Doctor Metatron's elderly father, Louis. That was the good news. The bad news was that, for reasons as yet unknown, the brother Adolphus had decided to move from his native Germany to Picardy, close to Calais where ferry crossings to Dover called daily. Lucifer Novak's agents were watching him, but he was now uncomfortably close at hand.

Two weeks after I learnt of this, Lucifer Novak called again and told me that he was now all but certain that Mr. Adolphus Metatron knew I had been involved in his brother's death, and had instructed his henchman in England, Mr. Gadreel Evans (the man who I had briefly encountered in Miss Bradbury's office), to dispatch me. To his surprise and consternation, Mr. Evans had refused, and had predictably himself been shot soon after. Mercifully he had survived, and was able to provide Balthazar with a full list of his late master's other agents in England. Which was wonderful.

Until April arrived, and ironically on the first of that month the news that Mr. Adolphus Metatron had disappeared from his French home and could not be found. This was no joke. 

I was now (hopefully) the only London doctor who carried a loaded revolver with him in his coat-pocket.


End file.
